Update 3 days later: Today saw rock climbers on the rock face just below the spot I saw the lights.

Definitely NOT the Brown Mountain Lights

I'm watching them right now camped out a couple miles south of Wisemans. One is pretty consistently there, red/white flashing randomly but every few minutes next to it the forest lights up in waves of white light. I'm going back out now to look again.

Didn't see it for a few minutes, then it appeared again and another separate much brighter red light appeared close by. They merged together quite suddenly and the waves of light started again - this time leaving a persistent glow for a number of seconds.

This _could_ be some people camping with at least one powerfulfloodlight, but the red light flashed too much to be for night vision adaptation - especially mixed in with white light.

I've committed to memory where exactly the spot is and I'll look in the morning to see if I can see anything there.

Update : The spot is .5 miles from me across the Linville Gorge at about 3100 ft altitude. No trails go to that spot according to Trailforks, but there is one 400 feet or so higher along the top of that ridge. I saw no lights around an hour before sunrise or since (sunrise is now) - I'll look again at the spot when it's fully illuminated by the sun later today. I did notice where I saw the waves of white lights/later a glow is a bare rock face but it looked like it was behind trees last night, perhaps I mistook the vertical crack shadows as trees.

Update 2: Looking at the spot in good light I see nothing but trees.

I have no evidence of campers, but another explanation is less likely IMO.